


americano, please (no extra sugar)

by partysize



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, From Patron to Boyfriend, M/M, Meet-Cute, blink or u miss it edelgard sighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28072725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/partysize/pseuds/partysize
Summary: Dimitri survived a bear attack when he was nine. He knows how to talk angry parents down. He could eat a habanero pepper whole without crying. Suffice to say, asking Felix’s number, the scariest barista ever known to mankind, who worked at a cafe in front of the school he worked at, should be an easy piece of cake. But unfortunately, Sothis is not known for treating him kindly.(Written for Dimilix Exchange 2020)
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37
Collections: 2020 Dimilix Exchange





	americano, please (no extra sugar)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi Mack! I hope you will like this. Thank you for requesting such a cute prompt, and I really had fun writing this! Happy holiday and may you have a good one!
> 
> Also special thanks to my friend, Vins for beta reading the fic! Give her a follow especially if you're into Atsuhina and Oihina because she wrote the most amazing fics for them. 
> 
> If you want to talk about Dimilix with me, or FE3H in general, you can find me on Twitter!

“Alright, Dimitri. You can do this.”

Dimitri nods. He survived a bear attack when he was nine. He knows how to talk angry parents down. He can eat a habanero pepper whole without crying.

Suffice to say, asking Felix’s number, the scariest barista ever known to mankind, who works at a cafe in front of the school Dimitri works at, should be a piece of cake.

“Yes. I can do this.” Dimitri looks up at Dedue, his best friend slash coworker, who graciously uses what remains of his lunch break to give emotional support to Dimitri. “Today. It will be the day, yeah.”

“Good. That’s the spirit.” Dedue pats his back. “Also, I hate to be that person, but I think you should make it quick. We only have 15 minutes left before our lunch break is over.”

“It won’t take more than five minutes,” Dimitri reassures him. “I just have to ask his number. Or ask him out to a date. It’s not hard. Everyone can do that.” And then he adds, hesitantly: “Right?”

“You will never know if you don't try,” Dedue smiles. “Now go. I’ll wait here.”

Dimitri throws him a salute sign before entering the cafe.

He’s immediately greeted by a cheerful Korean pop song. The cafe is thankfully only filled with a few customers, whom he recognizes as employees from the office building next to his school.

Felix is standing at his usual spot behind the counter, lazily scrolling through his phone. His bored expression quickly changes into an annoyed one when he sees Dimitri making his way to the counter.

“Welcome to Blue Lions,” he says, or drawls, more accurately, given how little effort he put into the sentence. “How may I help you.”

“I. I, um,” Dimitri sputters. “Uh. I.”

Felix doesn’t look impressed. He gives Dimitri a scrutinizing look as he waits for him to continue his sentence.

“Coffee,” Dimitri says at last. “I want— Sorry, I mean. I want coffee. Two. To go,” he adds, after he remembers Dedue, who is patiently waiting for him outside.

“Sure,” Felix replies. “What kind.”

He glances at the menu board and tries to make out the words listed there. Why are there so many types of coffee, anyway?

“Uh..” Dimitri narrows his eyes at the menu. “Americano, please? For both orders,” he decides in the end, since it’s the first menu listed on the board, hoping Dedue won’t mind.

Felix punches in his order. “That would be 800 Goldens. Would you like anything else?”

Dimitri shakes his head and hands his card to the barista. “That would be all, thank you.”

Felix only nods in response and swipes his card. When the barista turns his back on him to make his order, Dimitri starts to rehearse the questions he has been meaning to ask him for a while.

_Give me your number? No. Too demanding._

_Go on a date with me? Sounds too direct. We haven’t talked to each other that much in the past._

_Please, go on a date with me? Does it sound too desperate?_

Dimitri is so lost in thought that he has not realized when Felix has finished his order, and clears his throat impatiently to get his attention.

“Your order,” he says flatly as he hands over the beverages.

“Thank you,” he says, as he picks up his orders from the counter. And then: “Would you. Um.”

“Yes?” Felix asks him, annoyed.

Dimitri tries to force the words out. Anxiety should not win this time, and he already swore to himself that today will be the day he makes his affection known.

 _Now or never,_ Dimitri gulps.

“Willyougooutwithme,” Dimitri blurts out.

Felix narrows his eyes. “What?”

“Sorry, I mean--”

“Excuse me!” a shrill voice cuts him from behind. Dimitri turns around to see a white-haired woman tapping her foot impatiently. Her hands are crossed in front of her chest. She is way shorter than Dimitri, yet she’s able to intimidate him all the same, which kind of reminds him of his stepsister.

What’s worse is that she’s not the only one who looks visibly upset at Dimitri. Several other people are lining up behind her and looking at Dimitri with the same displeased expression.

“Are you done?” the woman asks. “If you’re done can you move aside so the rest of us can order too?”

“I— I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hold up the line,” Dimitri apologizes quickly. “Um, have a good day,” he says to Felix and leaves the cafe in a hurry before he can embarrass himself further.

Dedue, Sothis bless his best friend, is still patiently waiting for him at the bench outside of the cafe. He looks up from his newspaper when he sees Dimitri walking towards him.

“How did it go?” he asks.

Dimitri shakes his head dejectedly, and hands over the coffee to Dedue. “I hope you like Americano.”

Dedue takes the paper cup and looks at him with a pitiful expression. “Next time, my friend. Next time.”

* * *

Dimitri finds himself at Blue Lions again on that evening, after spending half an hour contemplating whether to visit the place again or to walk straight home.

In the end, his heart wins over his logic, so here he is: sitting alone inside Blue Lions after work, pondering over where his life has gone wrong. A piping cup of Americano that he doesn’t actually want is sitting right in front of him, reminding him of his embarrassing failure last week.

Felix, as usual, is tending the counter. The raven-haired man has been shooting glares at Dimitri ever since he set his foot inside the cafe an hour ago. Dimitri wonders if the barista has caught whiff of his real motive to visit the place almost every day.

“Hey,” Felix suddenly calls, breaking the silence inside the cafe. It takes Dimitri a minute to realize that he’s the one who was being called to, since he’s the only customer at the time.

“Yeah, you. Blonde guy sitting by the window. Seriously, do you see anyone else in this cafe?” Felix scoffs when he sees Dimitri looking at him with a confused expression. “Your name is Dimitri, right?”

Dimitri nods, trying to look unaffected despite having his anxiety level rising gradually. “Yes, that’s me.” If Felix asks him to repeat his question last week, Dimitri is dead, for sure.

“Oh, cool,” Felix says, and after a beat of silence, he adds: “My friend has something for you.”

“Your friend?” Dimitri furrows his brows at the unexpected statement.

“Yeah, my friend,” Felix grouses. He rummages through a refrigerator behind him and takes out a bear-shaped plastic bag filled with cookies. “She wants to apologize for yelling at you in this cafe last week,” Felix says, as he deposits the plastic bag in front of Dimitri.

“Lysithea..” Dimitri reads out the scribbled name on the plastic bag. “Sorry, that name sounds unfamiliar to me.”

“Bleached hair? Short? Intimidating?”

“Oh, her!” Dimitri exclaims as he successfully remembers the girl who yelled at him last week. “Honestly, she shouldn’t have. It was my fault, to be honest. I was the one who held up the line.”

“Well, in any case, I think it’s still unnecessary. I hate it when people are causing a scene at this place.” Felix frowns. “Also in case you’re wondering, she can’t deliver it to you in person so she made me do it,” he adds quickly.

“Please tell her that I am also sorry for my rudeness last week, and there’s nothing to apologize for on her part.” Dimitri turns over the cutely shaped plastic bag in his hand. Upon closer inspection, the cookies look oddly shaped and slightly burnt, which leads him to assume that Lysithea baked them on her own.

Not like it’s going to be a problem for Dimitri, given his lack of tasting ability. However, he still thinks it’s a very endearing gesture on Lysithea’s part to bake him cookies from scratch to apologize (even though the apology isn’t entirely needed either).

“You don’t like sweets?” Felix asks after noticing his reaction towards Lysithea's gift. Dimitri shakes his head, and gives him a sad smile.

“It’s not like I hate them.” Dimitri looks at the cookies with a longing stare, remembering the taste of his mother’s homemade chocolate chip cookies before he lost the ability to. “I lost my ability to taste when I was 13 after a terrible case of nasal infection. Don’t tell Lysithea about it though.”

“Oh, shit,” Felix grimaces. “ I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Also of course, I won’t tell her.”

“It’s fine! Don’t worry. You’re not being rude or anything.” Dimitri quickly reassures him.

Somehow, Felix still looks displeased at himself despite Dimitri’s incessant reassurance, although he doesn’t throw out another apology or ask him another question about his ageusia.

“I have to go back to work,” Felix says after a beat of silence. “Hope you will, uh. Enjoy the coffee, I guess. Hopefully,” he adds before returning to his counter.  
“You too,” Dimitri replies, before realizing how awkward it sounds. “I mean. Have a nice time. At, um. Making coffee,” he continues, and mentally smacks his forehead right after.

To his surprise, Felix laughs (laughs!) at him in response instead of making a scathing remark about his weird reply.

And boy, does he have a beautiful laugh. So open and free, and it stirs the butterflies in Dimitri’s stomach. He’s more than willing to make an ass of himself every single day if this is what he will get in return.

“You’re so weird,” Felix says after he comes down from his laughter.

“Thanks?” Dimitri replies, hesitantly. Felix still giggles when he returns to his counter, and he only collects himself when another customer enters the place.

Dimitri takes this as a small win, and mentally catalogues the barista’s laugh in his mind.

Hours later, even after he settles in bed in his small apartment, Dimitri can still hear the laughter rings free in his mind as he slowly drifts into sleep.

* * *

What Dimitri didn’t tell Sylvain was that he had never expected to be able to come this far.

He stares at his phone, which lies right in front of him. All he needs to do is to just send a short greeting message. Even a simple ‘hi’ will do. Yet Dimitri still can’t bring himself to do that anyway.

“Come on.” He takes up the damn phone at last. “Don’t be a coward. You want this.”

Felix’s number stares back at him right under the excessive emojis Sylvain has used to save it in his contact. Dimitri takes a deep breath. _Here goes._

He starts typing.

**Dimitri A.B**

Hi.

He puts down his phone on top of his table, and proceeds to yell into his pillow. Seven, ten, fifteen minutes passed before his phone buzzes. Dimitri scrambles for his phone to see that Felix has actually replied to his text.

**felix** 💌💗😍🥰💞💕💝

?

who

He’s taken aback by such a dry response, before scrolling up and smacks his own forehead. Of all things that he had to forget, of course it was to introduce himself.

**Dimitri A.B**

Forgive me for not introducing myself. This is Dimitri.

From the cafe? I was a regular.

And because Dimitri feels bold all of a sudden, he quickly adds.

  
**Dimitri A.B**

Can I call you?

His phone rings not even a minute after he sent the texts. When he picks up the phone, he is greeted by Felix’s sharp tone.

“Let me guess,” he says. “Lysithea or Sylvain gave you this number.”

“Yes. Yes, they did.”

“They also spouted a stupid, sentimental nonsense story before giving my number to you.”

Dimitri chuckles. “It’s not stupid, actually.”

“I will kill them. I will totally kill them.”

Dimitri laughs again, softly this time, because Felix sounds a little bit upset about it and he doesn’t want to offend him.

“But is it true, though?” Dimitri continues after a beat of silence, because he still needs to be sure.

“About what?”

“I think you know what I mean.”

Felix doesn’t answer for quite a while, to the point Dimitri thinks he is going to hang up the call and leave him wondering.

“This is so fucking embarrassing,” Felix grumbles. “Well. There’s your clarification.”

“Oh, um.” Dimitri’s mouth feels dry. His heart is beating like crazy, but he tries to gather himself so he can tell Felix how he feels. “Well. I don’t know if this will make you feel better, but pretty sure I am far more embarrassing than you are.”

The raven-haired barista laughs at him, much to his surprise. “You are not exactly subtle, to be honest.”

“What?” Dimitri is unable to mask his surprise. “So what you were saying is that--”

Felix bursts into laughter. An open, beautiful one, like the one Dimitri heard before when he called him a weird person.

“I heard you the first time, you know,” Felix says after he came down from his laughter. “I was too shocked to respond, and of course Lysithea had to come at the exact same time.”

“That was. Not my proudest moment.” Felix can’t see it, but Dimitri buries his head in his hand anyway to hide his blushing face.

“At least you didn’t bake inedible cookies and blamed it on your friend,” Felix says. “We’re even now?”

Dimitri smiles. “Yeah. We’re even.”

They talk, and talk, and talk after that. Dimitri learns that Felix quit his job because he received a scholarship offer at an engineering school in Adrestia. That Felix had never baked anything before, because he doesn't like sweets, which he uses as an excuse for his poor attempt at making cookies for Dimitri. That he loves cats, as well as reading up on medieval weapon history during his free time.

They have to end the call after two hours though, because it’s getting late and both of them have to wake up early.

“Hey,” Felix says after spending fifteen minutes on discussing the intricacies of Super Mario’s lore. The night is getting late and Dimitri’s eyelids grow heavier by the minute. “Ask me again.”

“Ask you what?” Dimitri actually knows what, but he decides to tease Felix to see his reaction.

Predictably, Felix is not happy about it.

“Ugh,” Felix groans. “ Do I really have to explain it?”

“Fine, fine,” Dimitri relents with a smile. “Will you go out with me?”

Felix laughs. Dimitri will never get used to the fluttering feeling that he experiences every time he hears his laughter.

“Yes, Dimitri. I would like that.”

\--

“You’re late.”

Dimitri grins at his boyfriend, who’s glaring at him behind the thick wool scarf that Dimitri knitted for him lastfor Christmas. This year’s winter isn’t actually that bad, but two years in Adrestia really made him grow weaker to Fhirdiad’s harsh winter. 

“Sorry. Busy day at work,.” he gives Felix a quick peck before sliding into a seat across him. “How’s Adrestia?”

“Oh, horrible,” Felix waves his hand in dismissal. “Too loud. I miss the food and the summer though.”

“Sounds really great,” Dimitri sighs. “I will take Adrestia’s summer over Fhirdiad’s any time. I really miss that place.”

Felix intertwines their fingers and give it a gentle squeeze. “It’s a good thing we will spend all summer together there next year, isn’t it?”

Dimitri smiles in response. “You’re right. I really can’t wait for our vacation.”

Blue Lions still look the same, even after all these years. People are still greeted by the same upbeat Korean pop songs upon entering (Felix later told Dimitri that the group’s name was Loona, which he grew to like after Felix forced him to listen to their entire discography), and its coffee still manages to attract new visitors despite its frequent barista changes. 

The new barista is called Byleth, who never says more than five sentences every day, but always remembers Dimitri’s order without fail and slips him some free macaroons when Dimitri is not looking.

Sylvain had quitted nearly six months ago, and is currently looking forward to establishing his own cafe. He works with some people in Enbarr, Dimitri heard, and has had his heart broken by a singer whom he met there. 

Lysithea still comes to the cafe from time to time, although her visits become less and less frequent as she graduates and receives an offer to work as a researcher in Fhirdiad’s largest research facility. 

Dedue and Hilda are more or less living the same life they have led before. They still have lunch together, and gossip about annoying students’ parents (although in this case it is more of Hilda who does all the gossiping while Dedue and Dimitri listen to her). Dedue is seeing a guy he met at his cooking class, and Hilda is preparing to open her first handmade jewellery shop.

People changed, and so does Dimitri. 

“Ugh, the management still hasn’t fixed the heater,” Felix grumbles. “You think this shithole will improve during the years I wasn’t here, but no. Still shitty as ever.”

“Do you want to go to my apartment?” 

“That would be nice. Also I got a better idea.”

Dimitri laughs. “What is it?”

“What if you take me to your apartment right now, so you can warm me up, and I can bake you those horrible cookies to commemorate our anniversary?”

Dimitri squeezes their intertwined hands gently. “I might have to take a raincheck on the cookies, but the other parts are not that bad, actually.”

Felix rolls his eyes, but hold out his arm to Dimitri anyway when both of them stood from their seats. 

His face is much more handsome under the snow, Dimitri thinks, when they walk through a gentle snow fall. Hilda is right. Maybe it’s the jaw. 

“I love you.,” Dimitri blurts out all of a sudden,. He gets flustered when he realizes what he had just said.

But Felix didn’t laugh at him, or scoffed, or rejected the affection. He looked at him with a fond expression, the one expression that is reserved for Dimitri and Dimitri alone only.

“I love you too.” He squeezes Dimitri’s hand in his arm. 

Dimitri smiles in return.


End file.
